[diamondpete]

Some comments.

The value of sparring.

Sparring has its place, but I think it is OVERATED for a "real life situation", particularly if you do sparring with gear.

Sparring "lets you" take hits that would injure you and is not good practice for a real life situation. The main benefit of sparring with "gear" is for sport, for "distancing" and feeling the impact with hands and feet (also it can be fun). If you are going to spar, for "real life" you would be better served by sparring with no gear and pull punches and kicks (semi-contact). But in general Sparring is not such a great way to train for being in a street fight.

If you want to "spar" then go somewhere where there is sparring, I think there is a great difference between wanting to spar and wanting to prepare for a fight. If you really want to prepare for a fight, you should get in some fights.

ANY art, sport, etc, will do you some "good" and I do not think that one is necessarily better than the other. A lot has been made out of MMA and its relation to street fighting, but it is still not a real fight.

MMA is more like boxing with all parts of your body. Would a trained boxer do well in a street fight - no shit - of course he would, would a trained MMA, no doubt. Would a trained hapkido-ist, - no doubt.

Some advantages of hapkido (I do not do hapkido, but another traditional MA, and IMO they are all similar in that your body only moves in so many ways) for a real situation is that practice things that would be effective like eyes and groin strikes, head butts and joint locks (more about that later). There are also no weight classes (not sure about MMA)

Some other comments:

What is the value of Kata
Kata is one way of developing good form, by practicing repeated you are developing muscle memory and a trained response. I also like paired kata, it is very good for focussing on distancing ( a most overlooked skill) If you have seen many "real" fights (by this I mean punch up in the street) you will notice that this is a very common "weak point"

joint locks
Many people think they are not effective when they study because at the early levels. For example, when the attacker grabs your right wrist in an overhand grip with his left hand and pushes down near navel level, could open your palm, rotate at the wrist while simultaneously pushing on his hand with yours, bring your elbow over his forearm creating an "s" shape in his arms and it is simple to make him eat he floor.

Then you go home and practice it with a friend and since he "doesn't grab you right" the reverse doesn't work and we can conclude it is rather useless in real life. Fair enough, but if you stick with it you will find most joint locks and reverses are built on each other and the early ones are pretty useless, but you need these and the "feel" to learn how to apply others. Basically if your buddy didn't grab you right, there is another joint reverse ( you probably haven't studied it yet).

ANother thing to consider is that before you do a real joint lock you usually get them off balance (in this example with an eye strike, groin kick, shot to the neck or perhaps a kick under the hand to the ribs) They do not need to even hit for it to make it much easier to use the lock.

Long story, but the point is if your skill level is high, joint locks are very effective, especially in a the university pub type fight where the guys want to push each other or grab each others wrist/ arms.

jumping over guys and other wierd stuff
Is there no value in being able to jump over things and keep your balance in a street fight. or learning how to fall if you are flipped so your foot takes the fall and not your back, how to roll so your head is protected.



This is getting a bit long winded but the point is, take what you want- but whatever you take your skill at it will be much more important the which system you actually choose. (btw most MMA guys studied traditional MA and took the techniques that work for them - based on their body dynamics etc)


I think that you should be looking for something that is fun and what you want to do, rather than some thing for the street, because that is really a different deal than what most people take about when they throw out words like self defense, real life, etc.

cheers